Tell me about your polling stations?

Semi-affluent area, mostly white professionals, youngish.

Easy to vote here.  Digital with no printed record from what I remember of last time.

Walk to the end of my street to the fire hall, say Hi to Holly who I went to HS with to check in (yes, she still checks my driver's license) and walk over to a machine and vote. I often take my dog with me.

In and out in 5 minutes, I was the only voter there. I couldn't help but notice the prominently placed bottles of Purell on every table, though! 

dculberson said:

We use touchscreen electronic voting machines that generate a paper ballot that you then take over to a vote tallying machine operated by an attendant. Ohio is weird.

 

SC is the same way. 
 

My polling station didn't screen the voting machines. Anyone who wanted to look could have seen my vote from 20 feet away. I didn't think that was too good. 
 

And the tabulating machines... they look suspiciously like garbage trash cans. I'm just saying...

I live in a large MA town, but it's out in the country a bit. We have 3 polling stations; ours is in the high school gym. It can get busy in the parking lot (very small lot) but I've never had to wait more than 2 minutes in line. We also have early voting at the town hall, which is awesome. No sign holders, no traffic, and no BS: you just go in, vote, and leave.

MA has paper ballots that you fill out like a SAT/ScanTron test by filling in the dots. You check in, they give you the ballot, you fill in the circles, and check out. After checking out, they escort you to the ballot machine, which is a big locked plastic bin with a paper feeder and display that lets you know if the ballot is counted. The poll workers cannot put the ballot in; you have to do it, and there's a cop there to make sure of that.

My biggest problem with the whole thing is that we don't have cool "I VOTED" stickers like everyone else does. That makes me sad.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Small boro in PA not that far from Philly, mostly white with the full swing of middle class.  We have 2 polling stations, my half of town is in a church gym I can almost see from my house.   Machines are like Duke described, a paper sheet with the choices is inserted as part of prep and the voter pushes buttons next to each and then a final one to confirm choices.  Usually 2 machines operating.  Never waited more than 15 minutes.  

I live in a small suburb of a small suburb of Pittsburgh, mostly white and Indian. Only time I've been to the polls was the 08 general election. They were still using those same machines that were changing votes in 04 with no paper trail. 

My candidate wasn't on the ballot, there was no write in option, I left and haven't been back.

Well that's not entirely true, I tried to go back for the 2012 primary, but was told as I'm registered "no affiliation" I wasn't allowed to pick who went on the general ballot. That was the list time I even considered going.

In reply to RevRico :

In Michigan you just ask for what party ballot you want on the day, no pre registration.

I like hearing these regional similarities and differences.

AngryCorvair said:

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Thanks, now I'm gonna go cry.

I live in Ventura just a few hundred feet from the Los Angeles county line.

Our community clubhouse is used as the polling station and wait times are typically zero to one minute. We get the scantron thingies and you draw a black ink line between goal posts to make your selections.

In the past, you would tear a receipt off your ballot and feed it into a scanning machine that would immediately record your selections. This time, they just had me dump my ballot through a slit in a locked plastic trash can.

The new process seems anticlimactic and doesn’t instill confidence…no receipt means it’s impossible to conduct an audit and of course, everyone handling the ballots is aware of that.

stupid easy. Any polling stating in the county. We have 10 different polling stations. Always a small line (10-15 minute wait). Scan the back of your state issued ID, scribble a signature on an ipad. Use an electronic machine. Been this way for a while now. 

I guess it could be a problem if you don't have a state issued ID (that's free if you don't have one) but you can't do anything without an ID at this point. You need it to collect welfare, get a job, drive a car etc. 

Adrian_Thompson said:

In reply to RevRico :

In Michigan you just ask for what party ballot you want on the day, no pre registration.

I like hearing these regional similarities and differences.

We register to vote at the DMV when we get or renew our licenses. I think we can do it online now, but in my experience, anything to deal with this state and computers is a clusterberkeley at best. I don't remember anyone trying to sign people up in line or at the designated polling place, but that was years ago. 

What stuck out to me was how my questions were answered. 2008 I wanted to vote for Ron Paul. He didn't pay enough or get enough signatures to be on the ballot in my county. "How can I vote for Ron?" Oh, he's on the ballot in Cambria county, but because you're registered in Westmoreland, even if you drove the 2 hours there, you couldn't vote there. 

Why can't I vote in the primary? It's the "democratic primary" only registered dems can vote for the dems to go on the ballot in November. "What if I think this 2 party bullE36 M3 is completely undemocratic?" Then run for office. "Where can I run as an independent?" For anything above school board but below federal, you can't.

I've come to find out I can, if I pump cubic dollars into the system. 

Sorry if I maybe crossed the flounder line a bit, but nobody listens to me around here because it seems the idea of not being a Dem or Rep is completely foreign to most people.  

Michigan: must vote in your home precinct - or by an absentee ballot postmarked by election day. Ballot is a Scantron. In suburbia it is quiet and quick - only a few hundred voters per precinct. In a city it is horrendous, with 10000+ voters per precinct and lines until midnight. 

I live in rural North Floridaand voting here is done by district,.

My polling station is about a third of a mile from my house, and it's plainly within sight. It's a little white concrete block church. Never had to stand in line at all to vote. Walk in, old lady finds my name in the register, I fill out a paper ballot, and feed it into the machine.

I get an I Voted ✓ sticker that I usually put on the truck's visor.  Easy.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

Last time I walked in I was only the 46th person they had since 7:00 I was there about 10:30  The whole time I was there nobody else came in. 
when I got in the truck afterwards somebody finally pulled up.  
Minnesota has a register at the polls law.  ID or registered voter to verify your residency is all that is required.  We usually lead the nation in turn out. Also In spite of active supervision of the polls by both parties voting fraud is extremely rare  

Yes,  I live in a very upper crust neighborhood.  

Lower middle class small city with totally diverse ethnicity. I must vote at the church 1/2 mile from home. Never more than 5 minutes wait, but last time the geriatric on the registration desk couldn't find my name because he thought G came after H. The old lady on the L-Z book had to help him.Voting machines are in flux, the county insists on using the machines they just got 3 years ago, but the state says they are suspect. Big legal fight brewing

I live in a town of about 21,000 people, fairly rural mostly blue collar families. I vote at the firehouse about three miles from the compound.  There is usually a good turnout but I don't think I've ever waited more than about 15 minutes.  We vote with paper ballots scanned into a machine and I also miss the satisfying click of the old mechanical machines.  

dculberson said:

We use touchscreen electronic voting machines that generate a paper ballot that you then take over to a vote tallying machine operated by an attendant. Ohio is weird.

 

That is the system we have just put into service.  I haven't used it yet. 

my polling place is a school that borders our neighborhood.  I could walk to it in less than 5 minutes, and probably will next election.  

Most elections are a 5-10 minute wait at most.   But, one of the George W Bush elections was a mother though.  The line wrapped around the interior hallways and it took a couple of hours.  

In Illinois my whole life. Two different suburbs, city of Chicago, and downstate (Normal). All been about the same. Wait is usually under 8 minutes. 

Two annoying things that have happened 1- my dorm building (Normal) was split into two polling stations. Went to the wrong one in 2008. So that took an hour of my time (walked to one, waited in line, found out it was wrong, 20 minute walk to the other, wait in line)

2-in Chicago, these guys in a van gave me a homeless outfit and a bunch of names to use and drove me all over the city with different names to use. Hand cramped up. 

When I don't use early voting (which is offered every election) I've waited as much as twenty minutes. This is in suburban Atlanta, in a city of about 100,000 residents. I vote at a church gymnasium or the local library. Fairly well organized. Early voting FTW. 

Polling place is at a school less than a mile from my house, we walk when the weather is nice. Never a line, in and out in about 5 minutes. We use the paper ballots with the fill in circles, where I always get OCD about completely filling in the circle and not going outside the line. They usually have about 10 of the little plastic privacy booths set up, but rarely are more than 5 in use at a time when I've been there. I miss the mechanical lever-type voting machines from back in the day. Those were very satisfying to use and no berkeleying circles.

I'm not sure how to tell how many people are in my [gerrymandered] precinct.  It looks like 680 people voted in my precinct for the 2019 primary.  The county is only ~376k people and there are 101 voting precincts.  I recall voting in 2014 and there being a line >30 minutes, but aside from that I have always early voted for other stuff.  The primary this year I voted day of and it took maybe 10-15 minutes.

I'll be honest, I only went to vote for a local tax measure up for vote.  We are a super tuesday state and candidates were dropping like flies... I think a lot of early votes were wasted here.

My polling station is the township offices.  I walked in and out.  5 minutes.

Fill in the circle on the paper and feed it in the scanner.

I vote by mail.  In my county, if you request an absentee ballot one time, you can check the box to get an absentee ballot for future elections.  Just fill it out and drop it in the mail.